[Note: I wrote this post a month ago and have been tinkering with it on and off since. Given that the show premiers tonight in the UK (possibly already) and it’s framed as if we don’t know how the show turns out, I figured it was now or never to post it!]

Human beings have strange obsessions. When the actor Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond in the early noughties, there was an angry reaction based on the colour of his hair. “Bond not blond” was the cry – in those halcyon pre-Twitter days, there was no hashtag – a cry which largely died down when Casino Royale was released and was largely well-received.

The cry arose in another direction in 2015 when writer Anthony Horowitz said that Idris Elba – a fan and Sony executive favourite to play the spy – was ‘too street’ to play James Bond. Based on the long history of the use of the word ‘street’ in racialised contexts, this comment was interpreted as racist – Elba could not play James Bond because he was black. (It’s worth noting that when this was pointed out to Horowitz he rescinded his statement in horror.) Meanwhile, watching Elba act or seeing him in any context in which he is allowed to be suave shows that he could have been a fine Bond indeed.

Concerns over the casting of James Bond goes back to the early 1960s, when Bond-creator Ian Fleming opposed the casting of Scottish actor Sean Connery for his refined and sophisticated character. After watching Connery, however, Fleming’s opinion changed (or so the story goes). The next Bond book Fleming wrote – You Only Live Twice – introduced Bond’s Scottish ancestry. If you’re convinced by a performance, it can change your idea of what a hero can be.